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AND THEY CHARGED HER

“hOw DArE yoU hURt LIhuA!” someone yelled in a warped voice.

“YoU daRe, You foOLiSh BuD?” another screeched.

A cacophony of grating voices shouted as the entirety of the fake Liufan sect ran at Tian. They dropped whatever they had been doing— or pretending to do— only focused on her.

The girl made a break for it. She made a mad dash over the three collapsed fake girls as they tried to reach for her ankles. Tian easily sidestepped around their cloying hands before sprinting down a side street. The horde of deformed sect members funneled in after her, and she glanced back once.

They looked even more off now compared with before. The way they ran— the way their feet moved— didn’t align with how their torsos twisted with each step. Their arms flailed in the air as though they didn’t know what to do with their upper body. They bumped into each other, a stumbling mess, yet didn’t even slow in the slightest.

Clicking her tongue, Tian leapt into the air with a burst of Qi. The earth beneath her feet exploded upwards, propelling her further as she flew over a crooked tower. She landed at the rooftop, now a hundred feet in the air, but almost lost her footing. She looked down at the haphazardly arranged tiles. They were slanted in all directions, making it difficult to traverse despite the seemingly neatly flat formation. Each step she took echoed— a hollow sound. Like her feet wasn’t planted on clay, but an empty wooden box.

Tian ignored these oddities, knowing it was a result of this… whatever it was. Illusions. Nightmares given reality. Or perhaps just a twisted place that was given the appearance of her sect. It didn’t matter. She just had to get away and find her way out of the Seventh Heaven.

“Master, where are you?!” she called out as she reached the other side of the rooftop.

She slid to a halt, dangerously close to the edge where her toes dangled over. Looking down, the girl watched as hundreds of false people clambered the side of the tower, somehow climbing up its vertical walls like it was hardly an obstacle. She slammed a palm against the rooftop as a ripple ran through the tower. The building rumbled for a moment— and began to collapse.

“That should slow them,” Tian said as she jumped off the falling rubble, before boosting herself with a blast of flames.

The structure fell on itself. Large chunks of clay and wood and stone and marble came tumbling down as the fake people of the Liufan sect went falling with it. They were crushed by the debris. Tian thought that would finish them. But they came crawling out as the dust settled after.

Her eyes went wide. “Just what are they?”

She pursed her lips as she landed, slowing with a gust of wind before her feet touched the ground. Shaking her head, Tian forced herself forward past the not-right houses.

“I just need to get out of here,” she whispered to herself as she headed for the sect’s exit. Wondering about what these things were didn’t matter. Not right now.

The girl took off running, but her footfalls trailed off mere moments later as she came to a halt before a familiar figure. It was a young woman. One that stood out amongst the hordes of false people in how eerily accurate she was to her likeness. Or perhaps it was more correct to say that she was alike to Tian. An older version of the girl.

After all, they always have had an uncanny resemblance to one another. Even for a mother and daughter pair. So perhaps it was because Tian herself was there, but this figure looked lifelike. Like she was actually there. And as the girl stared at that clone of Tiao barring her path, a single teardrop ran down her cheek.

“M-mother…?” Her voice came out hoarse. She took a single step forward as Tiao slowly made her approach.

“Hello, my daughter,” Tiao said, voice uncharacteristically cheerful with too much inflection. “It has been a while since we last saw each other, hasn’t it?”

“Y-you—” The girl caught herself from running in for a hug. Inhaling slowly, she calmed herself with some meditative breathing.

“What’s wrong, my daughter?” asked the fake Tiao with a smile.

Tian backed up warily, eyes welling up. She fought back against the tears and spat, “You’re not real.”

“But I am your mother.” Tiao tilted her head mechanically.

“I don’t know what this is. I don’t know what you’re trying to do to me. But I will not fall for your deception.” The girl took on a defensive stance. “Take a single step closer, and I will show you no mercy.”

And the false thing halted. Its expression changed. The smile on its face vanished. It didn’t move as Tian waited for something to happen. Anything. Then it sighed.

“I see,” it said.

In a flash, it appeared next to the girl. It kicked her in the head, sending her crashing into a house. The wooden beams collapsed around her sending up a cloud of dust.

It hurt. Tian found the side of her face aching— blood streamed down her cheeks as she gasped for air, coughing up the dust. She tried to get back on her feet, but her knees were weak. Her body was heavy. The world wheeled around her as a blurred figure sprinted through the collapsed structure.

“Wha—” The girl barely reacted this time, ducking underneath another kick.

She looked up in horror as the fake Tiao swiped down in a slashing motion with her hand. Tian raised her arms, blocking it this time as the ground gave way like mud beneath her feet. The attack itself— even when blocked— knocked the air out of her lungs and caused her to stumble away. Before she could recuperate, her assailant was on her again.

“This is what you get for misbehaving, girl,” the fake thing said as it landed a dozen precise strikes with its fingers.

Tian felt her meridians locking up. The flow of Qi through her body slowed. Her strength was being blocked. She was already outmatched, but now she couldn’t even fight back.

“G-get away from me,” Tian choked.

But the fake Tiao sneered. “Never.”

It picked up the girl and raised a hand as it shimmered with Qi, taking the shape of a blade. Tian closed her eyes and braced herself for the inevitable. This was it. To think she would die at the hands of a thing masquerading as her mother. It was over—

And there was a flash of light. A deluge of golden butterflies inundated the fake thing before it could finish off the girl. The attack was accompanied by a resounding chittering. The Spirits clung onto the fake thing’s skin, ripping off its disguise.

Tian fell to the ground, blinking. She looked up as the fake thing’s skin peeled away to reveal a ghastly shape. A pale body— one that almost looked hollow. Transparent. It screeched as the Spirits didn’t let up, and a galloping figure landed next to the girl.

“Master?” Her eyes went round as she stared at the fox-like creature.

“Get on, child of Ren,” the Sacred Beast said, waving his tail at her.

“B-but—” She didn’t know if her master was really there. This could’ve been another trap. However, the girl had nowhere else to go. It was a risk, and she took it. She leapt onto the Sacred Beast’s back as it hopped into the air, flying away from the false Liufan sect.

The false Tiao tore away the rest of the Spirits assailing it, before getting to its feet. It stood there, staring up at Tian and her master as they flew off, while the rest of the horde of fake things gathered behind it. They didn’t move. They looked on, a single mass as their disguises faded away, revealing husks.

Creatures with no form or shape. They could’ve been people once. But now, they were pale, gangly things. With empty eyes and deformed faces. Unrecognizable.

“What… are they?” Tian asked, averting her gaze as she shuddered in fear.

“Forsaken Souls,” her master replied. “They are people who had traveled to the Seventh Heaven and lost their everything. Their senses, their minds, and their perception of reality. They rely only the minds of those who still posses their sanity to take shape. To attain power. To, perhaps, one day, be restored to something again.”

Her eyes fixed only on the false Liufan sect as it, too, shed its disguise. She shook her head, wiping away her tears as she faced the front, watching her master soar over an infinite expanse of trees.

“Thank you,” she said softly. But her master didn’t give an immediate response. Instead, it waited. The Sacred Beast remained silent just long enough for her to realize something was off, before it spoke.

“We have to talk, child of Ren.”

And the girl remembered the reason why they were trapped here. How it had been all her fault. Only a single word left her mouth.

“Oh.”